Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

1. the Reasons for choosing the subject:

Why grammatical structure teaching?
The fact at secondary schools has proved that grammar, especially
grammatical structure is the first care of both teachers and students when
teaching and learning English. It is obviously the focus of English textbook
designers. Despite the prevailing slogan: “Innovate methods of teaching and
learning” and large campaigns to propagandize communicative approaches, it
seems that nothing can change their mind. In fact, many students might do the
grammatical exercises very well but ironically cannot utter a grammatical
sentence let alone use it appropriately.
Why don’t we innovate grammatical structure teaching first? Why don’t
we teach grammar in communicative way? Why don’t we develop students’
skills (especially speaking and listening) accompanying with their grammar
knowledge?…These considerations have prompted this thesis which studies
grammatical structure teaching.

Why dialogues?
Dialogues have come into our thoughts as the best solution for their
advantages of promoting communication in language classes. Using dialogues
in teaching grammatical structures certainly avoids boring English classes and
makes the teaching done well. So far, dialogues are able to turn bookish
grammatical structures into grammatical structures in use.

Why the 10th form students?
Being beginners, the 10th form students have not been used to learning
English in traditional methods. Thus, we think, they can adopt changes in
learning ways more easily in comparison to the 11th and 12th form students.
Moreover, during our Teaching Training Course, we were allotted to

teaching some 10th form classes. That gave us a lot of opportunities to apply the
techniques in this thesis into teaching and to get feedback from the students.
For the reasons above, we decided to choose the subject: Using dialogues
in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students.

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

2. the Aims of study:
The aims of our study are:
 To help teachers aware of some advantages of using dialogues in
teaching grammatical structures.
 To investigate the state of teaching grammar at secondary schools
(especially the state of using dialogue in teaching), the contents of
grammar in the 10th form.
 To help teachers aware of common grammatical errors students
usually make.
 To suggest some ways of using dialogues in teaching grammatical
structures to the 10th form students.
 To guide teachers to apply (or create more) techniques and activities
of using dialogues into particular lessons.
3. the Scope of study:
This thesis is about using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to
the 10th form students. All provided activities and techniques are based on the
target grammatical structure contents in the 10th form textbook.
4. the Methods of study:

 Collecting method.
 Descriptive method.
 Statistical method.
 Doing research design.
 Analytic method.
 Systematic method.
 Experimental method.
5. the Design of study:
Apart from acknowledgements, table of contents and references, the thesis
consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
Part A “Introduction” presents the reasons for choosing the subject, the
aims, the methods, the scope of the study and also its design.
Part B “Development” comprises four chapters:

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

 Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical preliminaries.
 Chapter 2 is about the state of teaching grammatical structures to the
10th form students. In this chapter, we emphasize some types of
grammatical errors of the 10th form students and the state of using
dialogues in teaching as well.
 Chapter 3 is the main chapter, which is named: “Some suggested ways
of applying dialogues to improve grammatical structure teaching to
the 10th form students”. It is sub-divided into two parts. The first parts
deals with applying dialogues to introduce new grammatical

structures. The second deals with applying dialogues to help students
practise the target grammatical structures.
 Chapter 4 suggests a sample lesson plan.
Part C is the “Conclusion” of the thesis.

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

Table of contents
Page
table of contents
acknowledgements
1.
2
3
4
5
Chapter
1:
1.1.
1.1.1.
1.1.2.
1.2.
1.2.1.
1.2.2.
1.3.

1.3.1.
1.3.2.
1.3.2.1.
1.3.2.2.
1.3.2.3.
1.4.
1.4.1.
1.4.2.
Chapter
2:

Part A: introduction

1

Reasons for choosing the subject.
The aims of study
The scope of study
The methods of study
The design of study
Part B: Development

1
2
2
2
2
4

Theoretical preliminaries

4

Grammar and grammatical structure
Grammar
Grammatical structure, a specific item of grammar

4
4
4
5
5
6
6
6
7
7
8
8
8
8
9

Grammar and approaches to language teaching
Grammar and traditional method
Grammar and communicative method
Grammatical structure teaching
Form or function
Common procedure of grammatical structure teaching
Presentation

Practice
Production
Dialogue as a teaching device
Dialogue
Dialogues and grammatical structure teaching
The state of teaching grammatical structures to the

11

10th form students at Vietnamese secondary schools.

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

2.1.
2.1.1.
2.1.2.
2.1.3.
2.1.3.1.
2.1.3.2.
2.1.3.2.1.
2.1.3.2.2.
2.1.3.2.3.
2.3.
Chapter
3:

The state of grammar teaching at Vietnamese secondary schools
Goals and problems of grammar teaching at Vietnamese
secondary schools
Contents of Grammar in the English 10th form textbook
Common errors
Research design
Results of the research design and presentation of common
English grammatical errors of the 10th form students
Errors of form
Errors of meaning
Errors of use
The state of using dialogues in teaching grammatical
structures

3.1.1.
3.1.1.1.
3.1.1.2.
3.1.1.3.
3.1.1.4.
3.1.2.
3.1.2.1.
3.1.2.2.

11
13
15
15
16
16

17
18
19

Some suggested ways of applying dialogues to
improve grammatical structure teaching to
21

the 10th form students
3.1.

11

Choosing or building dialogues to introduce new grammatical
structures
Criteria of dialogues as a teaching device.
Dialogue should contain natural speech and reflect actual
language use
The situations presented in dialogues should be relevant to the
age, care and needs of the students
Dialogues should be short, simple but be able to represent a
complete unit of conversational meaning.
Dialogues should both illustrate the meaning and contextualize
the functions of new grammatical structures
Some suggested types of dialogues illustrating new grammatical
structures
Cummings device
Contrasting dialogues

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21
21
21
22
24
24
25
25
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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

3.1.2.3.
3.1.2.4.
3.2.
3.2.1.
3.2.2.
3.2.3.
3.2.3.1.
3.2.3.2.
3.2.3.3.
3.2.3.3.1.
3.2.3.3.2.
3.2.3.4.
3.2.3.5.
3.2.3.5.1.

3.2.3.5.2.
3.2.4.
3.2.4.1.
3.2.4.2.
3.2.4.3.
3.2.4.4.
3.2.4.5.
Chapter
4:

Rituals
Companion dialogues

27
29

Some dialogue activities of practising the target grammatical
structures
Disappearing dialogues
Dialogue rearrangement
Dialogue constructing
Beehive drill (or chain drill)
Concentric circle drill
Information gap
Exchanging information
Personal interview
“Cued” dialogues
Role-plays
Improvising role-plays
Situational role - plays

Dialogue games
Who am I?
Don’t say “Yes” or “No”
Invitation Galore
The silent conversation
My life
A sample lesson plan using dialogues in

31
31
32
32
32
33
34
34
35
36
38
38
40
42
42
43
44
45
46
48

teaching grammatical structures to the 10th

form students. (Lesson 27: What’s he doing now?)

4.1.
4.2

48
49
54

Introducing grammatical points
Having students practise grammatical points
Part C: Conclusion
References

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

Chapter 1
Theoretical preliminaries
1.1 Grammar and grammatical structure.

1.1.1 Grammar
According to Oxford Advanced learner’s dictionary, grammar is “ the
rules in a language for changing the form of words and combining them into
sentences ”. In the other words, the field of grammar is often divided into two
domains: morphology and syntax. The former focuses on the structure of

words, dealing with such matters as inflectional endings and the way words can
be built up out of smaller units; the latter focuses on the structure of sentences.
For most people, students and teachers alike, grammar means:
1. Structure - usually means morphosyntax : forms and ordering of
forms
2. Rules and exceptions
3. Organization of the structure of the language

1.1.2. Grammatical structure, a specific item of grammar.
We mostly work at the level of sentences and grammatical structure is
usually understood as a system of interrelated words, which makes a meaningful
utterance. The meaning is derived from the relations that hold between the
elements of such utterance. Grammatical structures not only have
(morphosyntactic) form; they are also used to express meaning (semantics) in
context appropriate use (pragmatics). In order to guide us in constructing an
approach to teaching grammatical structures that strives to meet this definition;
it would be helpful to have a frame of reference.
Diane Larsen has proposed the form of a pie chart. Its shape helps us to
make salient that in dealing with the complexity of grammatical structures,
three dimensions must concern us: form, meaning and the pragmatic conditions
governing use. Moreover, as they are wedges of a single pie, we note further
that the dimensions are not hierarchically arranged as many traditional
characterizations of linguistic strata depict. Finally, the arrows connecting one
wedge of the pie with illustrated another illustrate the interconnectedness of the

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

three dimensions; thus a change in any one wedge will have repercussions for
the other two.
Having controlled a skeleton
structure, we can flesh it out to
create dozens or even hundreds of
utterances. So that, structures are the
building blocks of language. If the
students can handle a range of useful
structures in a formulaic way, aware
of the functional value of each and
able to substitute the content to meet
their communicative needs, then
they are getting what they need.

FORM

MEANING

Morphosyntactic
and lexical
patterns;
Phonemic/graphic
patterns

Lexical
meaning;
Grammatical
meaning

USE
Social context; Linguistic
discourse
Presuppositions about
context
(Page 252 - Teaching Grammar; Teaching
English as a second language or foreign
language - Marianne Cele, Murcia)

1.2. Grammar and approaches to language teaching.

In this paper, we only try to study the status of grammar in the traditional
method and in the communicative language teaching. The former still has a
great influence on teaching and learning foreign languages at Vietnamese
secondary schools. The latter is the new one that we are trying to apply to
renovate the way of language teaching and to improve communicative
competence of the students.

1.2.1 Grammar and traditional method.
Traditional method is something broadly labeled as GrammarTranslation method. It is undeniable that the traditional method is an overt focus
on grammar. The teaching techniques controlled by the Grammar-Translation
method, so that are rather book-oriented. The language is presented in short
grammatical chapters or lessons, each contains a few grammatical points or
rules, which are set out and illustrated by examples. The grammatical features
are not disguised or hidden. A technical grammatical terminology is not avoided
either. Generally, the medium of instruction is the mother tongue, which is used
to explain conceptual problems and to discuss the use of a particular

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grammatical structure. The learner is expected to study and memorize a
particular rule and examples.
It all sounds rather dull but it can be argued that the traditional method
has over the years had a remarkable success. Million of people have
successfully learnt foreign languages to high degree of proficiency and in
numerous cases, without any contact with native speakers of the language.

1.2.2 Grammar and communicative method
A basic principle underlying all communicative approaches is that the
learners must learn not only to make grammatically correct statements about the
experiential world, but must also develop the ability to use language to get
things done.
According to these approaches, grammar teaching is not neglected but is
no longer the centre of language teaching process. It is recognized that simply
being able to create grammatically correct structures in language does not
necessarily enable the learner to use the language to carry out various realworld tasks. Besides knowledge of code (language competence), we need
something else for communication, that is communicative competence.
As a result, the techniques of grammar teaching in communicative method
are not book-oriented anymore. By animating and motivating his students to find
out grammatical rules, structures, exceptions, and use… to integrate such
knowledge into their communication, the teacher has done his job perfectly.
1.3. Teaching grammatical structures

1.3.1. Form or function

Today, one of the central issues surrounding the teaching of grammatical
structure is whether the focus of grammar class should be on form or on
function.
Teacher and material designers who believe that form is primary
maintain that students should understand and remember structures as many as
possible. The main danger of this approach is that even though students may
leave the class knowing a great deal of the structures of the English language,
they may not be able to use English to communicate effectively which is, after
all, the main purpose of a grammar class.

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Because of this potential danger, today many teachers and material
designers believe that grammatical structure teaching should focus on the
function or purpose that language serves. Thus, they maintain that students
should be taught various ways to ask for information, make a suggestion, or
refuse an invitation since there are real reasons for using language. A teacher
has to select the structures whose functions are useful and necessary to
communicate. What the teacher must do is to carefully select which forms to
teach for each function and to make it clear to the students in which situations
each form would be appropriate.
A basic assumption of this paper is that grammatical structure needs to
be given attention to both form and function. In order to use English correctly,
students need to become familiar with basic grammatical patterns of correctly
made simple statements such as “Please give me a coke”. They need to be

aware of the fact that they are making a request and that there are other ways of
saying the same thing (e.g., “A coke, please”, “Would it be possible to get a
coke?” etc). Furthermore, they need to know when it would be appropriate to
use English both correctly and appropriately; we need to include in our
grammar classes attention to both form and function.

1.3.2 Common procedure of teaching grammatical structures
A popular framework for teaching grammar based on examples or texts
is PPP (presentation-practice-production). Presentation of the new material
can be done with rules and examples. Practice of the target grammar is done
in the drill-like or more creative exercises. The result can be production of
learners' utterances (Byrne.D.1996)
This framework corresponds to 3 stages of learning skill:
Verbalization

Automatization

Autonomy

Presentation

Practice

Production

1.3.2.1 Presentation

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

In this step, the teacher shows a new structure’s form (both written and
spoken), its meaning and also its use. The explanation of the new structure
should find the appropriate balance between being simple and accurate, it
should be illustrated by plenty of contextualized examples or visual material if
possible. At the end of this step, students can take the new structure into shortterm memory to remember it until they have opportunities to do further work to
consolidate it.
1.3.2.2 Practice
The aim of grammar practice is to get the students to learn the structures
so thoroughly that they will be able to produce them correctly on their own.
This step is usually divided into two sub-steps: controlled practice and guided
practice. The former helps the students to “get their tongue round” or
manipulate a new structure with the techniques such as: repetition, substitution,
single word prompts… The latter makes the students to think, and they have to
understand what they are saying. Usually, in this step, the learner’s form
sentences of their own according to a set pattern but exactly what vocabulary
they use is up to them.
1.3.2.3. Production
This step is creative and communicative. The students use their
knowledge of grammatical structures, which they acquired from the two early
steps to communicate freely and fluently. Usually, they produce utterances
about their own experiences, their life, and their family…. During the
production stage, there is a focus on what is said, rather than on the language
itself. That makes the students feel that they are really using language for their
needs of communication.
1.4. Dialogue as a teaching device.

1.4.1. Dialogue.
During the course of a single day, we all engage in countless dialogues.
Dialogues are indigenous to human nature: They are language in use. They are a
basic, frequent and popular means of linguistic organization and function. (Sự
hành chức của ngôn ngữ). A dialogue is always put into a particular context; it
only takes place when two or more people are participants in the interaction.

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There are spoken and written dialogues but a dialogue is intended to be spoken
aloud and it is usually associated with the activities of speaking and listening.
David Brohm traces the roots of dialogue to the Greek “dia“ and
“logos“ which means “through meaning“. One might think of dialogue as a
stream of meaning flowing among and through a group of people, out of which
might emerge some new understanding, something creative. It is essence of
dialogue that the participants expect each other to respond and it contains many
linguistic features which enable this to happen (most obviously question forms).
The participants need to feel they are contributing something to it and are
getting something out of it. For this happen, some principles must apply, such
as: cooperation, face saving, turn taking, coherence…
Everyday informal conversation is the archetypal case of spoken
dialogue. When we investigate how dialogues actually work, as found in
recording of natural speech, we are often in contexts where the language has
been carefully crafted, such as the script of a play or the conversations in a
language teaching textbook. Such dialogues may be very effective for their

purpose, but they are actually a long way from what can happen in everyday
conversations. The reality is that people often share in the sentences they
produce, interrupt each other, do not pay attention to everything that is said, and
produce a discourse where the contribution of the participants are wildly
asymmetrical. Yet all of this nonetheless produces a perfectly normal,
successful dialogue.
Finally, it is worth noting the Do Huu Chau’s definition: "dialogue is
an oral communicative activity between participants in order to exchange
descriptive and illocutionary contents”

1.4.2

Dialogues and grammatical structure teaching

Dialogues have a long and honorable tradition in foreign-language
teaching. One of its earliest known appearances is in the “Interpretamenta” of
Julius Pollux (AD 150-208) for Greeks learning to speak Latin. Since then,
dialogues have been very useful teaching devices in language classes. With the
prevailing of communicative approaches, their effectiveness is more and more
acknowledged.

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

In teaching grammatical structures, there are several advantages of
using dialogues in the classroom.

Firstly, the dialogue contextualizes new structures in meaningful units
of experience. Certain interrelated structural items can be drawn from a
dialogue. Since a dialogue adheres to a basic thematic unity, it provides good
clues for contextual guessing of unfamiliar and difficult structures. The context
helps the student to understand them while discouraging him from attempting a
word by word translation into his language.
Secondly, a dialogue places new structures in contexts where they
would normally be used. Certain structures are associated with certain realms of
experience so that the student can get a great deal about the appropriate use of
language. For example, the situation of meeting a friend whom you have not
seen for 3 years would naturally elicit use of the present perfect tense:
How have you been? Or:
What have you been doing?
Whereas, when meeting a classmate, you usually say:
How are you doing? Or :
How are you? Or:
How is it going?
Thirdly, a good dialogue can be more easily practised than unrelated
sentences. Since it is a chain of communication, each segment of the dialogue
may suggest what follows and provide the students with the built-in cue of
sequential order. It can be mastered without great difficulty and therefore, can
help the students learn new structures.
Last but not least, since dialogues involve an exchange between
speakers in social context, they are excellent devices for introducing the
students to common idiomatic expressions of spoken English. Some idioms
such as “between you and I”, “to be honest”, “pull somebody’s leg”…rarely
introduced in reading passages usually appear in available dialogues.
Though there is little question about the value of dialogues in ESL
programmes, there are some questions about their place in the lesson plan.
Some teachers feel that dialogues should be used to reinforce familiar

structures; other feel that they should be used to introduce grammatical
structures. It seems that the dialogue can do both.

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

Chapter 2
The state of teaching grammatical structures to the
10th form students at Vietnamese secondary schools.
2.1. The state of grammar teaching at Vietnamese
secondary schools

2.1.1. Goals and problems of grammar teaching at Vietnamese
secondary schools.
Vietnamese learners differ in their purposes for learning English. In
general, the students of English in Vietnam fall into three major categories in
terms of needs. Some view English as a tool for more attractive and lucrative
employment opportunities; other need a good knowledge of English to study
further at a university. The majority of students, to which students at secondary
schools belong, learn English just to pass the national examinations. These
students do not have an obvious communicative need. All they need is a
sufficiently good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary to pass the national
grammar based and norm-referenced examinations
Currently, the two most important English examinations in Vietnam are
the school final examination and the university entrance examination. Both are
administered at the end of grade 12 th and neither has a listening and speaking

component. Due to the pressure to pass the examinations, the students at
secondary schools focus more on language knowledge than language use,
learning grammatical structures, grammatical rules is really important.
Grammar knowledge for them is essential to give correct answers in
examinations, not to communicate or use language. Moreover, with the
misinterpretation of the principle "testing only what students have learnt”,
test writers confine the test content to what is covered in the textbook. This
again encourages memory-based learning.
So that, learning grammar at schools is considered as “ a ticket to ride”
and certificates are more important than competence. Failure in examinations is
viewed as academic incompetence and therefore, a face-losing misfortune. Not
only do students find it critical to pass the examinations, teachers are also very
much concerned about the pass rate of their students, since they are assessed

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

basing on their students’ performance in public examinations rather than on the
quality of their teaching. As a result, no matter what the learning purpose of
students might be, teachers have to make sure that their students achieve a high
pass rate in the examinations. This examination-oriented instruction produces
the students who may achieve the highest scores in the examination but fail to
show their exellence in real-life performance.
Our observation during teaching practice reveals that grammar learning
follows the hierarchy of first listening to the teacher, then repetition, and then
copying models.

For example, to teach the structure of the question
“How
th
many…”(LESSON 26, page 141-144, 10 form textbook, 2001), the teacher
usually writes one or some examples on the blackboard:
- How many apples do you want?
- How many books does she have?
- How many oranges do you want?
She/He then gives some explanation such as the nouns following “how
many” must be countable. Usually, the skeleton form of the target structure is
bordered to be a focus of memory.
How many + countable noun + auxiliary + subject + verb

While the teacher is working, the students listen and take notes. When the
teacher finishes explaining, she/he asks the students to repeat the structure and
examples on the blackboard. After that, the students are called to make
sentences after the already learnt structure. Then, grammar teaching is mostly
achieved.
Obviously, the traditional analytical learning style informs both
the teacher and learner that it is safe to learn and memorize rules. Classroom
interaction is largely one-way, either between a teacher and an individual
student or between a teacher and the whole class. Grammar classes are normally
boring and English grammatical structures are taught and learnt as if they were
mathematic formulas. Most of the students cannot apply them into

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

communication because they do not know how to use these structures
appropriately and they have not practised them enough yet in their grammar
class.
2.1.2. Contents of Grammar in the English 10th form textbook
The 10th form English textbook was compiled in 1989. Although it has
been corrected and edited many times, English teachers still have a lot of
problems in using this material to teach 10th form students
The 10th form English textbook is used by the students who have never
learnt English before. That is why grammatical contents contain simple and
common patterns, most of which are in simple present tense, some in present
continuous tense and some in simple past tense.
- From Lesson 1 to Lesson 25, simple present tense covers the introduced
structures such as:
This/ That + is + single noun (Lesson 10)
These/ Those + are + plural noun (Lesson 10)
To be + adjective (Lesson 9)
Would you like to do something (Lesson 25)
How many +countable noun + auxiliary + subject + verb (Lesson 26)
How much + uncountable noun + auxiliary + subject + verb (Lesson 26)
- In Lesson 27, grammatical focus is the present continuous tense.
- From Lesson 28 to Lesson 30, Grammatical focus comes back to
simple present tense with other grammatical patterns:
To want + infinitive verb (Lesson 28)
What time + auxiliary + subject + verb? (Lesson 29)
Can I do something? – Asking for permission (Lesson 30)
- From Lesson 31 to Lesson 36, grammatical focus is on the simple
past tense
In general, these grammatical structures are presented in short and simple

dialogues or texts. Three practices are followed to help the students grasp the
target structures, which are then consolidated through doing homework.
During our teaching observation time in Huynh Thuc Khang school, we
had a chance to attend a workshop on methodology (organized with the help of

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British Council). The English teachers of the 10 th form came to conclusions
that: The designs of some lessons in the 10 th form English textbook are rather
irrational. For example, both Lesson 11 and Lesson 12 focus on the verb “to
live” while the present continuous tense is taught in only one lesson (Lesson
27). Moreover, practices mostly are controlled, guided tasks, a few are free.
Similarly, typical types of exercises in homework are cloze exercise, picture
description, fill-in exercise, making sentences from prompts…There is lack of
free and creative activities to motivate the students.
Let us take LESSON 20 (“Before the lecture”, page 107-110) for
example. One of the two new grammatical structures provided in the lesson is
“How do/does+ subject + get + some place”. The practices in the lesson are
very mechanical. In Practice 1, the students are asked to do simple fill-in task:
How do you get to school?
I always/ usually go by…
In Practice 2a, the students ask their friend whether he/she goes to school
by a given traffic means (car, bus, train, or bicycle)
Do you ever go to school by car?
Yes, always/ usually/ sometimes

No, never
In fact, what the students have to do is to change the names of traffic
means in the available model and to choose an answer sometimes at random
(always, usually or sometimes)
In Pratice 2b, basing on clues, the students work in pairs to ask and
answer about the traffic means that each member in the Browns goes to work by
Mr Brown : always by car - sometimes by train - never by bus
Mrs Brown : usually by bus - sometimes by train - never by car
Tom
: usually by train - sometimes cycle - never by bus
Jenny
: usually by bus -sometimes walk - never cycle
All the students, who give the question, produce the same sentence:
“How does Mr Brown/Mrs Brown/Tom/Jenny go to work?” and their
addressees reply by adding subject and verb to the clues. For example: Mr
Brown- always by car = He always goes to work by car

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

If the teacher bases all his/her teaching on the textbook, the students after
Lesson 20 may not distinguish the meanings between the target frequency
adverbs: always, sometimes, usually … because they have no chance to practise
their use, they do not stand in front of the choice among these adverbs.
When being asked to do such tasks, the first reaction of the students is
usually to look at the model and adapt it. It is partly because practices and

exercises focus mostly on form not meaning and function of the structures. If
the students do not have a model at disposal, they find difficult to give correct
statements and even more difficult to utter them in appropriate contexts.
This fact poses a demand for all English teachers teaching the 10 th form.
That is they must be creative and flexible in using such material to adopt the
communicative approaches.
2.1.3. Common errors:
2.1.3.1. Research design
We have carried out a research design during the Teaching Training
Course at Cưa Lß secondary school. In this research, we have given out a
number of questions based on the 10th form English syllabus.
2.1.3.1.1. Dùng từ gợi ý để viết thành câu hoàn chỉnh:
- She/ work/ hard
- I/ go/ to/ school/ yesterday
- How many/ apples/ you/ have?
- My car/ more expensive/ yours
- What/ your sister/ name?
- He/ not/ play football/ yesterday
- What/ he/ eating?
- What/ his father/ do?
2.1.3.1.2. Dịch những câu sau đây ra tiếng Anh:
-

Nhà bạn ở đâu?
Từ nhà bạn tới tr-ờng bao xa?
Tôi đang đọc sách.
Anh ấy đang làm gì vậy?

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

2.1.3.1.3. Sắp xếp các câu hỏi, lời nói sau (giữa hai ng-ời bạn mới
quen) sao cho phù hợp vào khuông cho s½n
a. Your legs are longer than mine. Would you like to have the aisle
seat? I don’t mind sitting in the middle
b. How old are you?
c. Our president was in Asia recently
d. What is your address?
e. Are you from Atlanta?
f. A: I am visiting my grandchildren.
B: How old are they?
g. You’re really fat. How much do you weigh?
h. Did you vote for him?
Topic

Appropriate
statements/questions

Inappropriate
statements/questions

1.Home
2.Family
3.Apprearance
4.News/currents

45 students learning at Cua Lo secondary school were asked to do the
above exercises for an hour in written form. The students were encouraged to
answer the questions by themselves because they would not be evaluated
through the work.
2.1.3.2 Results of the research design and presentation of common
English grammatical errors of the 10th form students:
The collected data shows us the number of students’ errors which we
classified into 3 major types:
2.1.3.2.1. Errors of form:

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

These errors are rather complex and can be classified into the following
subtypes:
- Tense:
For example:
I go to school yesterday
He does not play football last week.
I read a book (Tôi đang đọc s¸ch)
Correct sentences must be:
I went to school yesterday
He did not play football last week
I am reading a book.
- Omission of main verbs:
For example:

I reading a book
My car more expensive than yours
He not played football yesterday.
Correct sentences must be:
I am reading a book
My car is more expensive than yours
He did not play football last week
rd
- Unmarked 3 person singular verb
For example:
She work hard
What do his father do?
Correct sentences must be:
She works hard.
What does his father do?
- Word order:
For example:
What name your sister is?
What he is eating?
Corect sentences must be:
What is your sister’s name?
What is he eating?
2.1.3.2.1.Errors of meaning:

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

Since the number of grammatical structures introduced in the 10th form
syllabus is not very large, students may not usually confuse their meaning.
However, these errors need be found out and corrected. Because if they
continually go uncorrected, students may not be able to use language already
learnt in class to express what they mean.
For example: - Nhà bạn ở đâu? = What is your house?
- Từ nhà bạn tới tr-ờng bao xa? = How long is it from
your house to school?
Correct answers must be:
- Where is your house?
- How far is it from your house to school?
2.1.3.2.3. Errors of use
Most of the students articulate that exercise (2.1.3.1.3) is the most
difficult and that when doing it they were not sure about their choice.
For example, between:
A: I’m visiting my grandchildren.
B: How old are they?
and
How old are you?
they could not decide which is appropriate and which is inappropriate.
Only one student did the exercise perfectly as follow:
Topic
1. Home
2. Family

3. Appearance

4. News/currents

Appropriate
statements/questions
Are you from Atlanta?
A: I’m visiting my
grandchildren.
B: How old are they?
Your legs are really
longer than mine. Would
you like to have the aisle
seat? I don’t mind sitting
in the middle.
Our president was in Asia
recently.

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Inappropriate
statements/questions
What is your address?
How old are you?

You are really fat. How
much do you weigh?

Did you vote for him?

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

All those errors have been summed up and illustrated by the following
chart:
7%
39

errors of
meaning

311

errors of
form

225

39%

54%

errors of
function

2. 2. The state of using dialogues in teaching grammatical
structures:

Although many dialogues are introduced in the 10th form textbook, they
are not used effectively in learning and teaching English. Most of the teachers
present the dialogues as the last part in their lesson plans (after presenting new
vocabulary and new grammatical points). In fact, a lot of teachers think that

these dialogues can only help to better the students’ reading skill but they are
helpless in teaching grammatical structures. As a result, teaching dialogues is
done without much care. Selecting or writing extra dialogues only comes to the
thoughts of a very few teachers.
When teaching dialogues, most of the teachers begin by reading the
dialogue first and then have the whole class read in chorus. The next step is to
call out some pairs of students to read the dialogue again. The teachers might
make some questions to check the students’ comprehension. Teaching dialogues
finishes with translation from English into Vietnamese. So far, no contexts of
the dialogues are exploited that is the reason why the students have no idea
about when and why they should use particular structures. Moreover, teaching
dialogues after grammar eliminates the students’ interest in guessing the

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

meanings of the target structures. So, obviously dialogues used in this way are
good for nothing in respect of teaching grammatical structures.
Using dialogue to have the students practise grammatical structure is also
problematic. The teachers are used to having students make sentences
individually. If the target structure is a question, there might be some two-line
dialogues between the teacher and a student or between two students. However,
the students are not encouraged to create their own dialogues or to say
something outside what they are taught in the lesson.
For example, when teaching LESSON 14 (“Bradford”, page 82-85) whose
grammar focus is the verb “have got”, many teachers guide their students to

make exchanges like this:
S1: Has your city got a church?
S2: Yes, it has.
Not many students are interested in standing up and saying such a
short answer: “Yes, it has”. Some think it is so easy that they do not need to
raise their hand to ask or answer. In this case, if the teachers guide the students
to make some other sentences, we think, the practice is much better. Instead of
saying short sentences, the students will have chances to talk more. For
example:
S1: Where do you live?
S2: I live in Vinh city.
S1: Has your city got a church?
S2: Yes, it has. It is a very big and nice church.
S1: Really? Do you usually go there?
S2: Sometimes.
However, only a few teachers control their lecture in this way and that’s
why each lesson is usually an isolate one not connecting with the other. The
students have few times to review what they have learnt before.
From our observation in Training Teaching Course, we come into
conclusions that: No dialogues or so simple dialogues are one of the major
reasons for boring English classes. The state of using dialogues in teaching
grammatical structures in this way even leads to common errors and mistakes
that we have shown in 2.1.3.2, especially the function mistakes.

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

Chapter 3
Some suggested ways of applying dialogues to improve
grammatical structure teaching to the 10th form
students.
3.1. Choosing or building dialogues to introduce new
grammatical structures:

3.1.1 Criteria of dialogues as a teaching device:
3.1.1.1. Dialogues should contain natural speech and reflect actual language
use.
In selecting or writing dialogues, it is important to remember that since
a dialogue represents an exchange between speakers, it should reflect actual
language use. While you may decide to use a dialogue to illustrate a particular
grammatical structure, your primary aim should be to exemplify a natural use of
language. Unfortunately, many textbook dialogues are written to present a
particular grammatical structure and in so doing do not reflect real language use.
Take, for example, the following dialogue (LESSON 16: “In Bill’s flat”, page
90):
Bill: It’s 3 o’clock now. Do you like a cup of tea?
Jane: Yes, please.
Bill: Do you like tea with lemon?
Jane: Yes, I do
Bill: Here you are. Sugar?
Jane: Yes, please
Bill: Now. Let’s have some music. Do you like music?
Jane: Yes, I do.
Are you free this Thursday afternoon?
Bill: No, I am not.
Jane: What a pity!

If the sole purpose of this dialogue is to exemplify “Do you like…“
question, then the dialogue, since it contains three examples of the question, is
successful. However, students generally focus on the content of a dialogue
rather than the grammatical structures it contains. In an actual exchange, it

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Using dialogues in teaching grammatical structures to the 10th form students

would be unusual for an individual to question another all the time with the
same pattern of questions. Moreover, the questions in the dialogues seem
disconnected.
We suggest the best approach be to limit the number of the questions that
the dialogue contains or to consider in what context “Do you like…“ question
might be used naturally in a series. Generally, a series of yes/no question like
“Do you like…“ is restricted to something like an interview, the situation in
which the role of one individual is to question another. For example:
Bill, a reporter for CVV broadcast channel is interviewing Jane, a
schoolgirl
Bill : Hi Jane, how are you going?
Jane: I am fine, thanks. And you?
Bill : Good. Now, I have some questions for you
Do you like CVV channel?
Jane: Yes, I do.
Bill : Do you like its MTV program?
Jane: Yes, I do. I think it is really interesting.
Bill : Do you like the film ’The man in the dark’? It was

shown last Friday.
Jane: No, I don’t
Bill : Do you like the comedies at 7 pm?
Jane: Yes, I do.
Bill : That’s enough. Thank you very much
Jane: You’re welcome.
3.1.1.2. The situations presented in dialogues should be relevant to the age,
care and needs of the students.
If a dialogue interests the students, they would be much more eager to
study it and the grammatical structures it contains. So that, the grammatical
teaching would be achieved more easily.
While teaching LESSON 28 (“Going by air”), some teachers realize
that their students are not very interested in the dialogue (Page149, the 10 th
form textbook).

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